Ping Identity

Overview

Ping Identity is an enterprise identity and access management (IAM) software company founded in 2002, known for its PingOne platform covering single sign-on, multifactor authentication and federated identity management (TechTarget). It is not related to Ping An, the Chinese financial-services and insurance group — Ping Identity is a US enterprise-software company. After a majority-stake acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in 2016 and a 2019 IPO, the company was taken private again in October 2022 when Thoma Bravo bought it for $28.50 a share in cash, an enterprise value of about $2.8 billion (TechCrunch, Goodwin).

The three-year public window

Ping Identity’s time as a public company lasted barely three years. Vista Equity Partners bought a majority stake in 2016 for an undisclosed amount, then took the company public in 2019 at $15 a share, raising approximately $187 million (TechTarget). Vista kept a 9.7% stake after the IPO — and voted it in favor of the Thoma Bravo deal (TechCrunch). As TechCrunch put it, the Thoma Bravo buyout was “actually the second time that Ping has bounced into the hands of a PE firm” — in substance, a private-equity asset with a brief NYSE interlude (TechCrunch).

The business behind the buyout

What Thoma Bravo bought was a growing but cash-strained subscription business. In the quarter that ended June 30, 2022 — the same quarter the deal was announced — Ping reported annual recurring revenue of $341 million, up 22% year over year, with SaaS ARR at $100 million, about 30% of total ending ARR (TechCrunch). Subscriptions made up the bulk of revenue at $66.3 million, or 92% of the quarter’s total, and Ping ended the quarter with 331 enterprise customers spending more than $250,000 in ARR each, up 19% from a year earlier (TechCrunch). Yet the company missed analysts’ estimates, with quarterly revenue of $72 million falling several million short — and its unlevered free cash flow was negative $8.4 million for the first half of the year, versus positive $34.5 million a year earlier (TechCrunch). Growth, in TechCrunch’s assessment, “has not been fast enough.”

A 63% premium on a bad quarter

The deal was announced on August 3, 2022 alongside Ping’s second-quarter earnings, in which revenue of $72 million missed analysts’ expectations and the company reported negative $8.4 million in unlevered free cash flow for the first half of the year (TechCrunch). The $28.50 price represented a 63% premium over the August 2 closing price and a 52% premium over the 60-day volume-weighted average — a classic PE playbook move on a public software company whose shares had slid (TechCrunch, TechTarget). Ping’s board unanimously approved the transaction, which was expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022 (TechTarget). TechCrunch’s read: Ping was growing but “not fast enough,” in “a tough spiral” of SaaS volatility, and may have been “running out of options for raising funding as an independent company” (TechCrunch). Thoma Bravo managing partner Seth Boro framed the other side of the bet — “a tectonic shift is occurring in intelligent identity solutions for the enterprise” — while CEO Andre Durand called it a “compelling transaction” for Ping’s shareholders (TechCrunch).

Identity consolidation and the SailPoint question

The acquisition landed in the middle of a private-equity consolidation wave across identity security. Thoma Bravo had already bought SailPoint — another identity governance vendor — for $6.9 billion and Anaplan for $10.7 billion the same year, and owned Sophos and Proofpoint (TechCrunch, TechTarget). TechTarget openly speculated that Thoma Bravo could combine Ping with other portfolio security vendors (TechTarget). After completion in October 2022, Ping’s stock ceased trading and was delisted from the NYSE, per the deal counsel’s announcement (Goodwin).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not state what Vista Equity paid for its 2016 majority stake (reported as undisclosed) or the exact closing day in October 2022 (only the completion and delisting are confirmed). It does not claim any post-2022 integration between Ping Identity and SailPoint or other Thoma Bravo portfolio companies — that was speculation at announcement time, never confirmed in the sources read. It does not describe Ping Identity’s current product line or financials under Thoma Bravo ownership, which were not covered by the independent sources read. The Ping An disambiguation is stated on the basis of Ping Identity’s business as described by TechTarget; Ping An itself is not profiled or sourced here.